Chapter 13
“Dammit!”
As if tripping over a creaking stair wasn’t bad enough, Mallory hit the oak railing on her way down and landed on her butt with a jarring thud.
Her late-night snack flew off the plate she’d carried up with her. The cheese slices she’d cut from the towel-wrapped wheel Madame Picard had left out landed in her lap. The round-bladed knife she’d brought to spread it with scattered with a half dozen or so crackers. A ripe, juicy apple bounced down the stair, ponging noisily on each tread.
Mallory managed to catch the pear before it suffered a similar fate, then lost her grip on it when a nasty snarl came out of the darkness behind her.
“What the hell are you doing, creeping around at this time of night?”
“Me!” Her heart pinging, she threw an indignant glance over her shoulder at the half-naked male who materialized out of the shadows. “You just took five years off my life … and no doubt bruised my pear!”
“Was that what went airborne?” The taut set to his shoulders relaxed. “Hang loose, I’ll retrieve it for you.”
First he detoured to the lacquered chest at the top of the stairs and deposited an object that gleamed dully in the faint light. Mallory’s pulse bumped when she realized he’d come into the hall armed.
“There’s an apple down there somewhere, too.”
He descended the stairs like a sleek jungle cat. His bare feet didn’t raise so much as a creak on the stairs that had protested her weight. The dim light made a moonscape of his back and shoulders and deepened the gap that appeared between his low-riding slacks and the small of his back when he stooped to retrieve the runaway fruit.
“What did you do?” he asked, dropping down to sit knee-to-knee with her on the step. “Raid the fridge?”
“The kitchen table. Madame Picard left a platter of goodies out.”
“I’m going to miss that woman.” Cutter eyed the recovered stash hopefully. “Got enough for two?”
“If you don’t mind broken crackers and slightly dented fruit.”
“Feed me, woman.”
So much had happened since Mallory boarded the plane to Paris that she would have sworn she was beyond being surprised by anything. Yet here she was, huddled on the stairs of a centuries-old château in a borrowed bathrobe with a man who’d lied to her from their first meeting. What surprised her even more was that she was in no hurry to end their late night tête-à-tête.
Frowning, she tried to rekindle her earlier anger. She was still seriously ticked at Cutter. Not to mention hurt that he’d used her as a pawn in his dangerous game. So why was she spreading cheese flavored with crunchy hickory nuts for him?
Because she was leaving tomorrow, the nasty voice of reality mocked. Leaving France. Leaving Yvette d’Marchand’s château. Leaving him. Her dream-vacation-that-never-quite-was would be over. All she had left of it was a few more hours and this temporary, fragile truce with Cutter.
Refusing to dwell on the grim reality of going home to hunt for a job and an employer who’d hire someone who’d made allegations against her previous boss, she spread a cracker with the soft, creamy cheese.
“Here.”
Cutter popped the cracker into his mouth. While he crunched down, Mallory cut and peeled a slice of pear with the blunt-tipped knife. The fruit was firm and succulent. Juice dribbled onto her palm with each cut.
She gave Cutter the first bite and nibbled on the second. He munched contentedly, his elbows resting on the stair behind him. Mallory licked the juice from her fingers and let her glance slide along his outstretched length.
Shadows played across his flat belly and sculpted the planes of his chest. The air in the drafty hall was cool enough to make her grateful for the fluffy robe, but Cutter seemed impervious to the chill.
“I’ve arranged to have someone meet you at the airport in D.C.,” he told her, breaking the stillness.
“Why?”
“I thought you might need a friend.”
“A friend? Or a watchdog?”
“Both,” he admitted without a trace of apology. “His name is Mike Callahan. He’ll keep you safe until I wrap things up over here.”
She didn’t particularly care for the idea that she had to be “kept” by anyone, but the incident in the woods had shaken her more than she was ready to admit.
“What happens when you wrap things up?” she asked. “You resume watchdog duties yourself?”
“If we haven’t nailed whoever slipped that disk into your suitcase.”
“And if you have?”
“Then I’m hoping you might still want a friend.”
She didn’t have many of those left, Mallory acknowledged silently. Yet the idea of being Cutter’s pal turned the sweet taste of pear sour and left an empty feeling in the pit of her stomach.
She was still trying to deal with the hollow sensation when he levered upright. His shoulder nudging hers, he angled around and removed the knife from her sticky hands.
“Just a precaution,” he said when she raised a brow. “The thing is, I’d like to be more than friends. And I really want to kiss you right now.”
“We both know that’s not a good idea.”
“Granted. That doesn’t make the want go away.”
He cupped her cheek. His palm was warm against her skin, his breath a soft wash that mingled with hers. Mere inches separated them. Tomorrow, it would be an ocean. After that, who knew?
Maybe that was why Mallory didn’t pull back when he leaned in, why her head tilted and her lids drifted down. Tomorrow, she decided as his lips brushed hers, would just have to take care of itself.
His mouth moved over hers, tasting, tempting. Heat stirred in her veins. The muscles low in her belly clenched. Then Cutter slid his palm from her cheek to her nape, anchoring her head, and molded his mouth to hers.
The half-eaten pear rolled off Mallory’s lap and thumped down the stairs again. The broken crackers scattered. She had no idea where the cheese slices went and didn’t care. Her body eager, her hands greedy, she matched him move for move.
Within moments she was semiprone on the wide wooden stairs. His free hand yanked at the tie to her robe. The lapels parted, exposing her to chill air and Cutter’s smooth, hot flesh.
She could feel him hard and straining against her hip. Wiggling a little, she added to the pressure on his fly. The sensual friction soon had him grunting and dragging his mouth from hers.
“If we’re going to stop,” he rasped, “it had better be now.”
Her blood pumped in heavy spurts. Desire raced like liquid fire through her veins. She wanted him naked and locked between her thighs.
“If we don’t stop, we need to change positions. Or geography. This stair tread is putting a permanent dent in my spine.”
“That, Ms. Dawes, is easily remedied.”
He scooped her up and took the stairs two at a time, reminding Mallory of that powerful scene from Gone with the Wind. Except she wasn’t Vivien Leigh, fighting him every step of the way and her Clark Gable retained presence of mind enough to retrieve his gun before striding down the hall toward his half-open bedroom door.
The hard butt of the pistol handle against her hip sobered Mallory and reminded her again why Cutter was here … until he kicked the door shut and carried her to bed in the finest Rhett Butler style.
The scent of fresh-baked croissants pulled Mallory from total unconsciousness. Lifting her face from the satin-covered pillow, she blinked owlishly and followed the general direction of her nose until her sleepy gaze collided with Cutter’s.
“‘Bout time you woke up.”
He, obviously, had been up for some time. His jogging suit lay over the arm of the chair. Muddy sneakers sat on the floor beside it. He must have gotten in an early run, showered and changed while she remained dead to the world.
As he deposited a tray on the bedside table, the tang of his aftershave teased Mallory’s nostrils and vied for supremacy with the yeasty scent of the rolls. Wiggling upright, she shoved her hair out of her eyes and helped herself.
“What time is it?” she asked around a flaky mouthful.
“Almost ten.”
“Ten!” The croissant lodged partway down her throat. With a painful gulp, she swallowed the half-chewed bite. “I’m supposed to go in front of the cameras at eleven! Why did you let me sleep?”
“You told me to. Remember?”
Now she did. She’d mumbled the order sometime after her second out-of-body experience. Or was it her third? As best as Mallory could recall, every inch of her had shivered with delight and exhaustion.
Those emotions contrasted starkly with the ones that crept over her now. The prospect of facing a barrage of reporters stripped away all trace of morning-after joy. Her arms as heavy as lead, she dropped the roll back onto the tray.
“I’d better get dressed. Think I could fit into one of those suits of armor in the hall?”
Cutter was well aware of her reluctance to put herself out there again, but her attempt at levity brought home just how deeply she dreaded it. Nudging her aside, he sat on the edge of the mattress.
“I’ll be right there with you.”
“That’s another thing. How do I explain you?” Frowning, she plucked at the bedcovers. “What’s our story, Cutter? Do we have a history, or are you just one more notch on my bedpost?”
“If the subject comes up … ”
“Trust me,” she said bitterly, “it will.”
“ … we tell them we met in France, fell for each other and aren’t worried about the past, only the future.”
“They won’t buy it.” Dragging the covers with her, she slumped against the padded headboard. “We’ve known each other less than a week. Hardly long enough to fall in love.”
For her, maybe. Cutter wasn’t sure when he’d taken the plunge.
He suspected it was there in Monsieur Villieu’s orchard, with the sunlight on her face and her laughter as potent as the apple brandy. Whenever it had happened, he knew he wanted her safe and this op over more than he’d ever wanted anything. Or anyone.
He’d loved only once before, or thought he had. Jogging along the mist-shrouded cliffs this morning he’d realized that whatever he’d felt for Eva Hendricks didn’t come close to the protective and fiercely primitive instincts Mallory Dawes roused in him.
Which was only one of the reasons he’d made a quick trip into town after his run. The other was the horde that would descend on her in less than an hour.
“Maybe this will convince the reporters we’re serious.”
He positioned the jeweler’s box on the tray beside the basket of croissants. Her brow snapping into a line, she stared at the blue velvet box suspiciously.
“What’s that?”
“Your protective armor.”
The ring was an antique, its square-cut diamond mounted on a wide, white-gold filigree band that looked like old Victorian lace. Smaller baguettes circled the central stone in a delicate swirl.
“There was only one jeweler in town, so I didn’t have much of a selection to choose from.”
With Mallory watching in slack-jawed surprise, Cutter slipped the ring out of the box and onto her finger. The band was a little loose. He’d had to guess at the size.
“You didn’t have to do this,” she said, still frowning.
“Yeah, I did.”
Feeling as though the moment required a more extravagant gesture, Cutter raised her hand and dropped a kiss on her fingers.
“If you look at the filigree closely, you’ll see it’s carved in the shape of vines and fruit. Apropos, wouldn’t you say?”
She studied it in silence for several moments before lifting her gaze to his. “It’s beautiful, Cutter, and will certainly add credibility to our story. I’ll give it back to you right after the press conference.”
“The ring is yours, Mallory. A souvenir of your trip to France.”
Ignoring her protests, he dropped another kiss on her hand and pushed off the bed.
“You’d better get dressed. A couple of TV crews have already arrived to set up their equipment.”
* * *
For long moments after the door closed behind Cutter, Mallory simply sat amid the rumpled covers and stared at the white-gold band.
If she’d searched every store in Paris, she couldn’t have found a ring that delighted her more. She loved the antique look to it, with the graceful swirl of baguettes anchoring the center stone. But it was the delicate filigree band that filled her heart with a bittersweet ache.
The intricate vines, the tiny leaves, the fruit—as Cutter said, so very apropos of Normandy and the short time they’d spent here. She couldn’t believe he’d gone to so much trouble to erect the facade they’d present to the media, or that he’d found such a perfect vehicle to do it.
Then presented it to her here, she thought on a sigh. Amid the rumpled covers, with her hair a tangled mess and her eyes still gritty from sleep. The man needed to work on his timing, if not his technique. Even a fake engagement warranted brushed hair and teeth. With another sigh, she threw off the covers and padded to the bathroom.
She left the blue bedroom thirty minutes later. Rather than appear in borrowed feathers, she wore the jeans, white blouse, and navy blazer she’d had on when she arrived in France. Luckily, the ever efficient Madame Picard had restored them to pristine neatness. The ring sparkling on her left hand demanded something better than rubber-soled mocs, however. Making her final appearance in a pair of Yvette d’Marchand’s exclusive designs, Mallory descended the grand staircase.
A brief smile settled around her heart as she remembered going up the stairs the night before, but it died when she spotted the equipment cases scattered across the black-and-white tiles of the entry hall. A babble of voices rose from the library, punctuated by intermittent flashes as the camera crews tested their strobes.
Dread coiled and writhed like a living thing in Mallory’s stomach. Dragging in quick, shallow breaths, she forced herself to continue down the stairs.
“Elle est là!”
She had no trouble translating the excited exclamation. Her throat closing, she heard the others pick up the cry.
“There she is!”
“It’s her!
Like baying hounds on the trail of a fox, a dozen or so reporters spilled out of the library into the hall. Mallory froze as still cameras flashed, blinding her with a barrage of white light. The questions flew fast and furious until Cutter’s deep voice sliced through the din.
“Ms. Dawes will be more than happy to answer your questions, but not here in the hall.”
Tall and authoritative, his scars a deliberate and very visible warning that he wasn’t a man to be taken lightly, he mounted the stairs and tucked Mallory’s hand in his arm. She managed not to clutch at his sleeve like a frightened child, but her knees felt like the custard filling in one of Madame Picard’s pastries as they waded into the fray.
“Ladies. Gentlemen,” Cutter said calmly. “In the library, as agreed.”
A battery of TV cameras, some mounted on tripods, some shoulder-held, captured their entrance. Cutter positioned Mallory in front of the gilt-trimmed desk and slipped a lover-like arm around her waist. The modernistic portrait in its lighted alcove formed a dramatic backdrop. The oriental carpet provided a tapestry of jeweled colors at their feet.
Mallory tried not to wince as the klieg lights came on, adding their glare to the flashes from the still cameras. Boom mikes poked over the heads of reporters who machine-gunned the questions at her.
“Mademoiselle Dawes, how do you come to be at Yvette d’Marchand’s château?”
“Did you know Remy Duchette?”
“What happened at Mont St. Michel that caused you to miss the turn of the tide?”
“Have you been in contact with Congressman Kent during your time in France?”
“Is Monsieur Smith your latest lover?”
Mallory knifed the reporter who’d shouted the last question with an icy glare. Before she could respond, however, Cutter drew her closer within the circle of his arm.
“Not her latest,” he corrected.
He smiled at her, playing to the audience yet somehow giving her the sense that his words were for her alone.
“Her last.”
Okay, this was only pretend. A very skillful act for the cameras. Even if it hadn’t been, Mallory knew better than to believe Cutter’s smooth lies. That didn’t prevent a raw, scratchy lump the size of the Eiffel Tower from clogging her throat.